THE CRAZY ONES (1.13) – Pride, Prejudice, and Celebrity

Self-centered Zach sabotages the campaign by escaping from quarrantine

SIMON:“Who among us hasn’t suffered from an ill-timed Katrina pun, or flashing a fertile crescent when getting out of a limo?”

Lauren Bullock making her television debut as an unnamed server.

So there’s this talking doll named Randi Jenkins and at least one went to market with “kill mommy” in its language banks. The agency is hired to repair the image of Randi and the company (named Girlfriends) that makes her. The dude who hires Simon to do this thinks the doll is alive and believes everything it says.

In the process of getting the doll account, Zach gets coughed on by a kid (Lily Bingham) and gets sick as a result. Sydney doesn’t want to catch anything because she has a date with an athlete/doctor fellow about whom she has developed complex wedding fantasies. This bothers Andrew, who thinks he’s in love with Syd and tries to prevent her from going on the date. He quotes Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice twice and Syd recognizes both quotes. Syd explains to him that she doesn’t want to risk their friendship in pursuit of a sexual relationship. Amazingly, this does not make Andrew give up.

Lily Bingham as the kid that coughed on Zach

Sydney thinks they’re cheering her on as she waits for her date, but the quarrantined office workers really are pleading to be released. Another celebrity metaphor?

When Syd’s date finally arrives, Syd emits a tiny cough, but fails to “vampire cough” and her would be date retreats into the elevator, and immediately chats up a busty woman on his right. Will Sydney ever go on an actual date? (In this episode, we learn that she last went out with Andrew and that their itinerary included dinner at Chili’s, bowling, and a Yo-Yo Ma concert.)

The “vampire cough” is, apparently, a real thing, and not just a Buffy reference. It means to cough into one’s sleeve and I thought it was named after a Bela Lugosi move from his portrayal of Dracula, but I have been unable to locate any photo of Lugosi in this pose. The vampire cough is a widely advocated means of disease prevention.

Sydney (Sarah Michelle Gellar) preparing for her ill-fated date

Lauren (Amanda Setton) tells us that Sydney likes popcorn shrimp; The Container Store, and Debbie Gibson. (Syd’s ringtone is Gibson’s Lost in Your Eyes, and she wants the song to be played at her wedding.) There has been, as yet, no report of an eventual guest appearance on the show by Gibson, though such a development would seem logical.

Placed in charge of the campaign when most of the office falls ill, Lauren screws it up and presumes that she is fired. Simon, who has repaired the damage and gotten the account back, does not fire Lauren, and instead reminisces about the four page resume she presented when she was hired. We learn that Lauren:— types 80 words per minute— can field dress a moose— can forge anyone’s signature after seeing it once.

Comic Helen Hong barely appeared in this episode but possibly has a larger part next week.

NOTES

Kristine Johnson (Valerie Meyer) anchors the 5pm news for CBS Channel 2 in New York City. Johnson played an unnamed TV Reporter in episodes 11, 21, and 22 of the CBS series ELEMENTARY.

Andrew joins Zach and his neti pot in quarrantine.

KiKi Levine who is normally a Set Production Assistant for THE CRAZY ONES, got her first TV acting credit as the voice of the doll.

Judith Moreland (Sandra) played a doctor in the series finale of CROSSING JORDAN in 2007. Most recently she was Judge Jennifer Nash in episode #30 of FRANKLIN & BASH which first aired 14 August 2013.